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Welcome to the RotoBaller NBA Recap. In this feature, we will highlight a few key fantasy basketball takeaways from the games played during last night's slate. These viewpoints can be both positive and negative and will hopefully help to provide insight into different roster moves you should consider making based on trends and statistical nuggets from around the Association.
Fantasy basketball has a lot of moving pieces with all the different scoring settings that are possible to play under, so I will always do my best to spotlight where players gain or lose value in certain game types. For the sake of simplicity and consistency, every time I mention Fantasy Points in these articles I will be using DraftKings' scoring system, which goes as follows: 1*PTS, 0.5*3PM, 1.25*RBD, 1.5*AST, 2*STL, 2*BLK, -0.5*TO. On top of that, bonus points are awarded for Double-Doubles (+1.5) and Triple-Doubles (+3), only one per player at a time.
Without further ado, let's get right into the latest slate of games from the 2021 season and try to figure out how to take advantage of what we saw transpire.
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Saturday, November 27
Joel Embiid returns from his bout with COVID without seemingly having skipped a beat; Durant reigns in the fantasy slate but eats an L in defeat to 16-straight-wins Suns
Whether it's true or not, that is up for you to judge. But JoJo returned yesterday and in his first declarations to media, he said that he had more than a rough time fighting COVID during the past few weeks, like, for real. Now, looking at his line from his comeback against the Wolves--a 2OT, no less--one wouldn't say that: 42 chicken wings, 14 boards, 3 dimes, 2 blocks, and a steal to spare. Absolute unit of a performance in which Embiid also hit 52.2% of his bulky 23 FGA and went to the line 21 (!!!) times to finish with 16 freebies on the day. Philly lost by one. Cold world.
The Nets had the best Durant they could expect as KD dumped a marvelous 39-9-7-4-1 line on the Suns to the tune of a slate-leading 70 DKFP. Brooklyn also boasted a triple-doubling James Harden with The Bears putting up a 12-13-14-1-2 (though he shot a putrid 26.7% on 15 FGA and hit none of his attempted treys) yet he fouled out of the game. Anyway, the Suns won another one with CP3 and Book finishing as the 20th- and 21st-best players in DK with lines of 22-8-5 and 30-1-4-1 respectively and 40 FP each.
- The Rockets somehow won their second game in a row defeating the Hornets in a game that featured the no. 3 and no. 4 players of Saturday's slate. Christian Wood had a packed 33-16-3 dub-dub (with 2 blocks and 2 treys, and only one TO) while LaMelo Ball put up a trip-dub of 19-11-13 to go with a steal on a nightmarish shooting performance (36.8% on 19 FGA).
- D'Angelo Russell helping the Wolves edge the 76ers is great news for a Minny squad that surely needs D'Lo to play his best game ROS. Russell was able to hit 6 treys on his way to 35 pops while adding a sound 4-8--2-2 rest-of-line shooting the rock a ridiculous 25 times on the day--on four quarters and two overtimes for a total of 44 minutes of playing time, though.
- Spicy 16-21 double-double for Captain Clint Capela in the Hawks losing effort to the Knicks. Cap added one dime, one steal, and three swats to his line while hitting 57.1% of his 14 field goals with no trips to the charity stripe at all in 35 minutes doing it out there on the hardwood.
- Gabe Vincent coming out of nowhere--and off the pine, for that matter--giving the Heat 31 excellent minutes in which he was able to dump 4 treys and 20 points on Chicago while adding 2 boards, 5 dimes, and a steal in Miami's W. The Heat are up to second in the East tied with Washington and aiming for that number one spot currently occupied by the BKN.
- First bombastic performance by Rudy Gay in Utah after going for a 13-7-5-1 line in a bright night that also saw the vet score 4 triples in only 24 minutes of playing time.
- Speaking of Utah, its foe yesterday in New Orleans featured a certain Jaxson Hayes for only 8 minutes. That might make you think he did nothing... and you'd be absolutely wrong as Jaxson somehow finished with 15 points (3 treys), 4 rebounds, one dime, one steal, and a ridiculously efficient 3.13 FP/min average. That is the highest mark of the season among players with 8+ MP in a single game, just in case.
- Rudy Gobert is really dumbfounding at times. He's as capable of having 20-20 games as he is of not hitting double-digits in any cat. That latter development took place yesterday as he finished with a stupid 6-8-1-1-2 packed-but-measly outing in Utah's victory over New Orleans. Not that Gob was the one playing any delightful Jazz, though...
- Not the greatest day for big men as Julius Randle could only reach 27 FP with an 8-11-4 line shooting 26.7% from the field, Bam Adebayo had a Gobertesque 9-7-6-1 outing, and Deandre Ayton didn't help Phoenix a ton with his own low 10-6 contribution.
- Tyler Herro stayed on the sidelines for the Heat yesterday with soreness, but there should be no deep concerns about his availability going forward... Cam Reddish got banged up and didn't return to the Hawks game against New York... Bogdan Bogdanovic also had to leave the same game before halftime... Wendell Carter Jr. (threw glasses--LOL) and Dewayne Dedmon (kicked a chair--LOL x2) both got ejected.
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